


The Reaper and the Rabbit

by juuheizou



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Vampire Bites, Vampire Hunter Mutsuki, Vampire Suzuya, Vampire hunting in this story is more like ghost hunting than slaying, also i'm not sure it's even implied heavily enough to warn for it, but donato and the clowns are kinda lowkey cannibals in case u pick up on that, implied animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25046383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juuheizou/pseuds/juuheizou
Summary: Mutsuki jumped as, without so much as a sound of footsteps to warn him, the heavy wooden door swung open with a creak. He was met with a tiny, ghost-white stranger with straight black hair framing and obscuring their face, who stared right up at him with big, reddish eyes and a playful smile. Easily as it could be explained away with fatigue and tricks of the light, their grin looked just a little off, canines just a little too sharp to look perfectly natural. “Hello!” they said, drawing out the 'o' almost musically as they grinned at him. “What brings a sweet thing like you out into the sticks?” //Mutsuki and his van of fellow vampire hunters break down in the middle of nowhere during a thunderstorm and the only help for miles resides in a spooky old castle that calls a fun and leather-loving metalhead vampire by the name of Suzuya Juuzou its master.
Relationships: Mutsuki Tooru/Suzuya Juuzou, Suzuya Juuzou/Mutsuki Tooru
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. On a Dark and Stormy Night

Something was going to happen. Mutsuki could feel it as they drove. Even the fluorescent lights above them had a poisonous greenish tint as they illuminated the dilapidated gas station Urie had chosen to stop at. He had no interest in going and interviewing the staff, let alone picking something to eat in the convenience store, using the bathroom there, or doing anything Shirazu suggested they do while Urie put ten dollars on their pump. Staying in their half-empty car while he waited for the other guys to come back sent its own flavor of scary thoughts flying through his mind, but at least he had locked doors and windows between him and the shadows moving about the desert. But then Saiko, having fallen asleep in the back seat of the van, against his shoulder for so long it had gone numb, woke up and immediately started begging him to grab her a bucket of the establishment's apparently famous fried chicken. She was just as relentless as he was stuck in a small enclosed space with her.

So there he was, hurrying after Shirazu and Urie, trying to move faster than the dread settling in his gut with every step. Once inside, he quickly made his way to the bags and buckets of chicken sitting under a heat lamp by the counter. All he had to do was grab a bucket, slap it onto the counter with whatever Shirazu was buying for the road, and run back to the car. That was all he had to do. All he had to--

“Hey, Tooru! Check this out!” Shirazu put a hand on his shoulder and exclaimed, just as he was reaching to take that precious bucket, startling him so much that he almost launched Saiko's chicken at the ceiling. He didn't want to know what Shirazu could possibly want to show him in a creepy gas station on the outskirts of nowhere, but he let him drag him to the other half of the store anyway, and right to a shelf full dead things.

Fetal humans and animals alike all sat in jars of formalin, staring at him with two heads, one eye, six fingers. Taxidermied 'mermaids' and 'chupacabras' filled the empty spaces left by the jars. According to Shirazu, and to the wall plastered in sideshow posters and newspaper clippings of murderers, the entire second half of the convenience store was some kind of museum of all things spine-chillingly creepy. “There's even a murder _ride!”_ Shirazu grabbed his shoulders and all but shouted in his face. “How boss is that?” Horrible.

“Ooh! I wanna go on a murder ride!” Saiko materialized behind Mutsuki and said. “You were taking too long,” was her explanation, right before she grabbed the bucket of chicken from his arms and took it to the counter herself. And with that, she and Shirazu teamed up to pester Urie into going on the murder ride with them. Urie rolled his eyes, but agreed to do it. “Come on, Mucchan,” Saiko looked over at him and said. “Don't be a wuss!”

“It'll be fun!” Shirazu chimed in.

“We dare you!”

“You gotta!”

“You guys, go ahead!” Mutsuki said with a nervous laugh, hands raised as if it was a stick-up. “I, uh...” He started to sidestep around them and towards the door. “I'll go call Dr. Sasaki and tell him where we are.” It did need to be done. They hadn't checked in with him in a while.

Haise was their team leader who earned a doctorate studying literature and myths around the supernatural only to switch gears into hunting such creatures, when their behavior endangered the people living around them. The four of them were meeting him to investigate a strange canid prowling a suburban cul de sac. Probably a coyote infested with mange, but there was still a chance it wasn't. Vampires, for example, possessed the ability to shapeshift into dogs and, around these parts, were often dubbed chupacabras and cadejos by the local people. All three were real, but they could be mixed up. No one else wanted to call, so Urie just gave Mutsuki a handful of quarters and let him go while the three of them found a clerk and got on the ride.

The phone booth outside the store was dark and quiet save for the buzz of the old gas station lights and the chirping of crickets hiding in any crevice they could find. Mutsuki's hands trembled as he slipped a few quarters into the slot and dialed Haise's number. While the line rang, all he could think about was the tight, nervous ball in his stomach. Something could drag him from the lonely booth and he would disappear into the humid night, never to be seen or heard from again.

“Hello?” someone finally answered. Mutsuki couldn't help but think with a mixture of relief and fear about how, if something happened to him, someone would know he was gone when the line went silent.

“Dr. Sasaki!” he said with a small smile. “It's Mutsuki. I'm just calling to check in.”

“Mucchan! What a relief to hear your voice!” said Haise. “Where are you guys?”

“We stopped for gas at this station outside Deadwood. Urie and the gang are still inside, but we'll be back on the road, soon. You can expect us on time.” Urie would never let them arrive to a case late or anything that would make him look bad.

“Great. Everyone's getting along okay, without me?”

“Um...” Mutsuki didn't want to answer that question. “They're getting along fine.” As fine as one could expect, so he had to just tell himself that was fine enough to tell Haise they were fine. Urie and Shirazu bickered about every little move the van made, effectively arguing over him any time he made a feeble attempt to calm things down, and Saiko just ignored them all. That said, no physical violence had broken out, so it was as good as Urie and Shirazu stuck in a hot, humid car for hours could get.

“Pretty bad, huh?” Haise chuckled on the other line.

“They're fine, really,” said Mutsuki. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so.”

They debriefed a little longer, but their talk ended and Mutsuki was thrown back into the black, now-silent void of the gas station again all too soon. He hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth. One step from the protection of the glass, though, and he came face to face with a black and white dog.

“Ha--! Hi there,” Mutsuki squeaked. The dog just stared at him with eyes that looked like black holes with glowing white pupils and irises, the natural glow that merely allowed animals to see at night looking so sinister it made Mutsuki's blood freeze in his veins. Deadwood was no country for a double-coated sled dog, but it had black points and upright ears, a face like a miniature wolf, and stood only up to Mutsuki's thighs. How in the world a stray husky found its way so far from a comfortable climate was the last thing on his mind as its gaze stayed glued to him, but the thought was somewhere in there. Poor thing, he thought, but a poor thing that could chase him down without fatigue and snap him up in those powerful lupine jaws if he wasn't careful. It stood dead still, didn't even blink for what felt like forever. “Do you... Do you want a piece of chicken?” Surely, Saiko would share with a helpless stray.

At that, the dog silently bared a mouthful of almost human-looking teeth, save for the long, razor sharp canines. There was nothing human about its face and yet, Mutsuki could only describe the look it gave him as a wide, sinister grin. Mutsuki stood frozen, staring back into the dog's glowing eyes and unnatural smile for a split second before bolting back to the car. By then, the rest of the gang were waiting for him, car full of gas and chicken. As they drove off, there was no sign of the black-pointed dog out the window.

The vanishing dog, Mutsuki told himself, was only strange in that it vanished from the only potential shelter around for miles right before a torrential rainstorm brewed overhead. Creeped out as he was, Mutsuki sincerely hoped it found a way out of the rain as it hammered down on their car and poured down the windows. Urie furiously ran the windshield wiper while he and Shirazu yelled at each other over wrong turns and whose fault it was that they had no idea where they were, on top of this weather.

“I told you to turn a few miles back, asshole!” Shirazu snapped. “But no, you're so fuckin' proud all the time, and now we're lost because no directions from anyone but you are right!”

“We wouldn't be lost if you would just shut up and let me drive for five seconds!” Urie snarled back.

“Guys, guys!” Mutsuki tried to interrupt at that point. “Maybe we should turn back and ask for direc--”

“Fuck you!” Shirazu shouted at Urie.

“Fuck you!” Urie shouted back and the arguing continued until--

 _BANG!_ Urie cursed under his breath and grappled with the steering wheel so as to keep the car from flipping over. Mutsuki and Saiko were were thrown around the back seat until the van came to an dragging, grinding stop. As much of a relief it was to have stopped without complete disaster, the grinding and dragging kept the van from going much of anywhere, when Urie tried to start it.

“What was that?” Saiko exclaimed when they were out of immediate danger. Mutsuki would have asked the same thing, were he not still a little petrified in fear.

“Felt like a blowout,” said Shirazu. Urie shot him a look for answering first, but according to the two of them, after a long, loud argument outside, he was right. One of their back tires was blown out and flat.

“And this _idiot_ forgot to put the spare tire back in the trunk,” said Urie, staring daggers at Shirazu the entire time Shirazu explained the situation.

“At least I remembered to air it up!” Shirazu said with a lopsided grin and a hand on the back of his neck. “But uh, we passed a castle a few miles back. We're thinking someone needs to go find a phone and call for help.”

“Not it,” said Saiko.

“I'm not the one who _left_ a whole tire at the gas station,” Urie grumbled.

Shirazu, and subsequently the entire van, just went really, really quiet. Mutsuki got a sinking feeling that he was going to be the one venturing out into the black, spooky, pouring night. Sure enough, after a beat of silence, he was all but thrown out of the van, despite his terror-fueled protesting.

The rain made short work of Mutsuki's sweater and dress shirt. It only took a minute or two of walking before he felt them stick to his skin, ice cold and sending a violent shiver all through his bones. Better him, he figured, than one of his friends have to walk a mile in the storm, but the thunder made his heart race and the lightning made him jump. His socks squished and squelched with every step down the uniformly dark road that seemed to go on forever. He tried not to look at anything but the lines on the road, for every time his eyes wandered towards the surrounding woods, the trees looked alight with glowing eyes and grinning teeth. When he looked back at the street, something audibly dashed across the length of the asphalt, shadowy and too fast for his comfort.

Then, like a guiding star after what felt like a lifetime in pitch black, he saw a light. He trudged through the deluge and did his best to ignore the sounds of something prowling through the woods, keeping his eyes on the light burning ahead of him as it grew brighter and he began to see the silhouette of the castle. Though big and imposing, it was the only sign of human life they had seen since the gas station, so when he got to the heavy iron gate, Mutsuki willed himself to step through it, past the 'BEWARE' sign attached to the bars, and keep walking until he reached the door. It took a second, but he managed to lift a trembling fist and knock.

Mutsuki jumped as, without so much as a sound of footsteps to warn him, the heavy wooden door swung open with a creak. He was met with a tiny, ghost-white stranger with straight black hair framing and obscuring their face, who stared right up at him with big, reddish eyes and a playful smile. Easily as it could be explained away with fatigue and tricks of the light, their grin looked just a little off, canines just a little too sharp to look perfectly natural. “Hello!” they said, drawing out the 'o' almost musically as they grinned at him. “What brings a sweet thing like you out into the sticks?”

The eyepatched verdette from the gas station looked like a sad little bunny rabbit, with hair dripping wet, clothes soaked through, and arms wrapped tight around their trembling body. Suzuya couldn't help but smile when he found them of all people on his doorstep, so helpless and pathetic it shocked him when he looked at him and they didn't fall to their knees. “My... my friends and I...” They spoke so soft and shakily. If not for his sensitive ears, Suzuya might not have heard them over the thunderstorm. “Our car broke down, and we, uh... The spare tire... You see... um...” For a second, they went quiet. “Can I, perhaps, use your phone? Please?”

“Ain't got one,” said Suzuya, and they slumped like he had poked them with a needle and bled him out. They grimaced and their doe eyes glossed over as if about to break down and cry. That abysmal face. Suzuya wanted to see more of it. Not to mention they smelled sweet as syrup and Suzuya hadn't had dinner, yet. “Tell you what,” he resolved to say. “Hanbee's got a tow truck! He can get y'all off the road and you can use our stuff to fix your car. Y'all broke down somewhere down the road, right?”

“Um, yeah.” There was only one road that passed by the castle. They knew what he was talking about. “A few miles or so, that way.” They nodded in the direction they had come from. “If you need, I can tag along and tell you where to--”

“Nah. He'll find it!” In the meantime, they looked awfully cold and shivery out there, in the rain. “You'd better come inside, seeing as you're all soaking wet!”

“Oh, no! That's alright!” they exclaimed. “Really, we have somewhere to be by morning! I don't want to be any trouble! I--!”

“No worries!” said Suzuya. “Come on in!” He grabbed their wrist and pulled them, stumbling, over the threshold before they could finish. The door swung shut behind them with a deep slam and they jumped at the noise. Something about that made Suzuya giggle as he guided them into the warm, candlelit living room. He brought them over to the first of two couches and a few chairs surrounding the coffee table, then gave them a little push, square in the chest, backwards onto the middle cushion. “Get toasty!” he told them. “I'll be right back.” They weren't going anywhere. He was sure enough of that to leave them for a moment, as little as he wanted to leave them so soon. “Hanbee!” he walked away calling.

Mutsuki sat, frozen, the lonesome yet agoraphobic anticipation of being left unattended in a stranger's home creeping up his goosefleshed skin, radiating from where their stone-cold hands had grabbed him as his very... persuasive host vanished down a dark hallway. He could hear him singsong for 'Hanbee' a few more times until their voice faded to silence and it truly sank in that, as far as he could see, he was alone. He had been sat down and abandoned in what looked like a living room, messy and lavish in the way that any old home could be lavish when it collected junk long enough to accumulate some treasures among the trash. The couches were velvety to the tentative touch and though a little faded, a blackish red that must have once been as rich and saturated as fresh blood. The chairs came in varying shapes, sizes, and patterns, but even though no two were the same shade, they were old and red, too. A cluster of votives burned in the middle of the dark wooden coffee table, and tall vintage candelabras and shaded lamps illuminated the sitting area from behind the furniture, light dancing eerily on every dark red and violet surface around him. An old crystalline chandelier shined dimly from the ceiling.

The semicircle of seating revolved around a dusty television set. It didn't look like an old model, but the cobwebs perhaps aged it a little, to Mutsuki's eye. A stationary record player sat to one side of the television. To the other side, a tall, thin bookshelf made of blackish wood. If Mutsuki really looked it up and down, it almost looked like a coffin with shelves in it. Was it rude to get up and see what his host kept on those shelves?

His racing heart and clammy hands said not to, but he was a hunter at heart and that part of him would be taking photos if he had a camera on him. Rather than get up, though, he scooched over to the armrest closest to the shelf. He couldn't reach over and touch the shelf, but he came close enough to peruse candles, movies, a handful of books, and oh so many strange trinkets to find himself staring right into the hollow eyes of an animal skull.

He jumped back at the sight of it. The skull itself belonged to a small animal, able to fit in one of his hands if he were to pick up and hold it, a small animal with large eyes, sharp canine teeth, and tiny incisors. It had its own short pedestal. On it, Mutsuki read “SHIRO” scrawled across it in what almost looked like a thick white nail lacquer. Did his host have something against Nashiro Yasuhisa, perhaps? In any other place, “SHIRO” meant nothing to him, but they had made it just a stone's throw away from the Yasuhisa Processing Plant before breaking down, and no one had heard from the missing Yasuhisa sister in years. When one resided and ran a meatpacking plant, said plant having a questionable reputation of its own, in the same town as the Cat Reaper of Ruggsville, grisly rumors and urban legends that kept Mutsuki up at every nighttime motel stop came to be accepted as fact. Mutsuki wondered if he could--

“Hanbee's out looking for your friends. They'll get here when they get here.” Mutsuki's host appeared out of nowhere, slinking in from a different room than he had departed to, and Mutsuki scrambled back to where he had been sitting when they left. “Anywho!” They didn't seem to notice he had moved, their unwavering grin still on their face as they set down two mismatched mugs on the coffee table and plopped next to him on the couch. “Have some! Warm your bones, a little!” Hot cocoa, it looked like, with a heaping handful of marshmallows in each mug.

“Um, thank you,” said Mutsuki. He took a green mug and his host took the red one, not waiting for their guest before slurping up a mouthful of what had to be mostly marshmallows. With a nervous laugh, not breaking awkward eye contact with them, Mutsuki mirrored them and took a tiny sip of his own. “You're very kind.” They said nothing. “So, uh, it's just you and... Hanbee?” Whom he still hadn't met or seen a trace of. “In such a big house?” The idea tugged at Mutsuki's heartstrings. When he thought about it like that, he saw more sadness than scariness in his host's cavalier enthusiasm at the prospect of company. He knew all too well what loneliness was like, himself.

“Nah. There's a bunch of us around somewhere,” they said with a smile. “So what's your name, sugar?” Mutsuki felt his face heat up, despite the rest of him still shaking from cold. His stomach tied into a knot and even he wasn't sure why, just staring at his host for a second.

“Tooru,” he murmured after what felt like a long silence. “Tooru Mutsuki. Um, what's yours?”

“Juuzou Suzuya!” Suzuya took another drink of his cocoa. “And what brings Tooru Mutsuki and Friends to bumfuck Ruggsville?” he asked, curious and wanting to pass time. “You didn't brave a thunderstorm for Donato's fried chicken. Did you?”

“Oh, we're uh...” Mutsuki rested his barely-touched cup of cocoa in his lap. “Just passing through.” Suzuya drank some more cocoa and Mutsuki continued his story. “We're going to check out an alleged paranormal sighting down here and see if we can get to the bottom of it.” Soft, nervous laughter. “Um, we're into that kind of thing.”

“Ever get to the bottom of something real?” Suzuya asked, point-blank without a second of hesitation. Mutsuki went quiet for a second and his eyes went from Suzuya downward and off to the side.

“We, um... I'm not... I'm not supposed to share the details with other people.” Boo. “Too many decide to check things out for themselves. Hunting is scary enough. I really don't think I could live with it, if something bad happened to someone because I gave them ideas.”

“Sounds like a 'someone' problem,” said Suzuya. Who cared if some cocksure goon got themselves into something they had no business in and paid for it? Let them vanish, get hurt, see something they didn't want to see. Let them die, for all Suzuya cared. “I just wanna hear some stories.” He caught Mutsuki in a rapt, unblinking stare. “I swear on my Mama's grave.”

“I, uh...” Mutsuki grew warm, his heart beating faster with every second Suzuya looked, expectantly, at him. “Gee, I sure wonder where Urie and them are,” he ultimately said. “Do you think Hanbee will be back soon? We really need to get back on the road.”

“Yeah! Yeah!” said Suzuya. “Y'all only broke down a few miles past here. They can't be too far, by now.” Not that he had any intention of going back out into the storm to look for them. Hanbee knew where he was going. But Mutsuki's feeble attempt at changing the subject gave Suzuya a fantastic idea. “How about you help set the table for dinner?”

Mutsuki had no idea if it was Suzuya's casual and unshaken self-assurance that he would do what was asked of him or if a real sit-down dinner sounded just that good after days on the road, but he didn't question it until after Suzuya had wolfed down the remainder of his cocoa, hopped up off the couch, and brought him into the kitchen. Even then, he only barely questioned it and still followed him down a short hallway. Suzuya's was an old kitchen. Not retro old, but unpainted stone walls and appliances he had only seen in history books before old. A medieval clay oven was built into one wall and an open indoor fireplace stood in place of a stove, a pile of firewood in its own dedicated corner of the room.

The utensils hanging from the wall and stowed in the drawers, however, were modern. Suzuya opened up the drawer that housed forks, knives, and spoons. Old and silver-like but not real silver. Without protest, Mutsuki brought nine sets of them, then nine sets of plates, then nine napkins out to the dining room. The dining room was decorated more like the living room, eclectic and red, red, red. In the middle of it sat a long, wooden table with a velvety burgundy tablecloth, a film of dust over everything on top of it, and a chandelier hanging over it. Three short candelabras sat toward each head and right in the middle of the table, dark red stick candles in each holder.

When the table was set and Mutsuki returned to the kitchen, there was a fire in the oven and Suzuya stood on a wood stool at the counter, a ruffled black apron on over his all-black outfit of leather and fishnet, cranking away at a large grinder, light pink strings of meat falling into a bowl under the grinding plate. Next to him, within easy reach, was a small animal's skinned and gutted body, a butcher's knife, and a paring knife. As Mutsuki watched on and his head grew light with every moment of it, Suzuya chopped another limb off the animal with a sickening _thwack!_ and used the paring knife to rend the flesh from the bone like a practiced surgeon before tossing it into the grinder and continuing to make mince of... whatever the poor creature was.

“You're not a veggie or something, are you?” Suzuya asked without looking up from the grinder. Mutsuki jumped at his voice. Truth be told, he didn't know that Suzuya knew he was there. “That's cool and all. It just might be kinda hard to find something substantial to feed you, in a house fulla meatpackers.” Until he said that, Mutsuki didn't connect the dots, but now that he said it...

“Grim Reaper Rabbitry.” They did operate out of Ruggsville, and he didn't know many four-legged animals with white meat that Suzuya could be butchering. “You and your family work for them?” he asked. “And, uh! No! No, I'll... eat meat. I just...” He didn't know how to explain himself. “I... prefer it well-done, is all.” It probably sounded pathetic to someone who worked on the supply chain of the region's oldest and biggest producer of rabbit meat, but it was true. Just helping Sasaki prep raw meat for dinner posed a challenge for him.

“Okie dokie,” said Suzuya, still butchering, cutting, and grinding at a relaxed pace, hands never coming to a complete stop. “Though, to answer your question, we don't work for Grim Reaper,” he explained. “We are Grim Reaper. Have been since no one would sell pigs or cows to my colony, forever ago. There's lots of rabbits in these woods. I _think..._ they... started breeding the ones in our hutches from those ones.” For a second, the kitchen went quiet. “Why don't you go out to the icebox and get me some eggs?” He nodded in the direction of a starkly modern metal door with a frosted-over window. “Just grab the whole carton. You can't miss it.”

“Um, okay!” said Mutsuki. He did as Suzuya asked, wondering up until he undid the latch and stepped into it, why an archaic but seemingly fully functional kitchen had to have an industrial meat locker built onto it. When he saw the answer, though, the chill up his spine wasn't just from the refrigerated air.

Blood. Tupperware on tupperware lined each wall, different shapes and sizes but all filled with blood. Rabbit blood, according to the masking tape labels on all the ones Mutsuki read before black spots started to cloud his vision. His heart raced and his breath grew too fast too fill his lungs, just looking around at all of it.

Despite his best conscious effort to regain control of his breath and calm down, he did nothing but stand and stare frozen for a minute before weak knees fell from under him and he dropped to the icy floor with a _thud!_ So much blood. He had never seen so much blood, before. Hands touched him and Suzuya's voice sounded in his ear, but before he could process what was going on in any finer detail than that, his body went numb and the meat locker faded to darkness, as if he was drowning in a bath of so much blood that the depths of it looked not red, but black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl i wrote and posted this before, then i felt like i wrote it like i hated writing, deleted it, and now i'm posting a rewrite i'm happy with. for anyone rereading since July 30, 2020, i fricked around and rearranged some paragraphs, but rest assured, the content is exactly the same.


	2. Scared Little Rabbits

When Mutsuki came to, he was draped over the living room couch, on his back with his feet resting on one of the armrests. His sweater was gone and his dress shirt was unbuttoned down to his clavicle. There was a soft blanket over most of his body. He looked over his own shoulder, head turned to the side, right at Suzuya, who kept pressing a cool, wet cloth to his face and neck. When he blinked the blurriness out of his eyes, though, he realized it was no longer just him and Suzuya.

Saiko knelt right next to Suzuya, hands resting on the edge of the couch, looking at him with a worried frown. Shirazu was on Suzuya's other side, looking at him over the armrest his feet were on. Urie stood off to the side with arms crossed and an annoyed look on his face. Apart from his team, there stood a very tall man dressed similarly to Suzuya, in a black shirt and pants, black leather coat, and black hat with a wide brim, long black hair falling past their shoulders.

“Tooru...” Suzuya singsonged gently upon realizing he was awake. “Take your time. You passed out for a while, there.” He smiled and pressed his cloth to Mutsuki's forehead. “Your friends are here. And dinner's almost outta the oven!”

“Whoa. Hold it right there,” said Urie, glaring at Suzuya. “We have a place to be, tonight. I never said anything about--”

“Aw, shut up!” said Shirazu. “Don't you start yellin' and stressin' out Tooru!” He looked from Urie to Suzuya. “Besides, how long'd ya say it would be before the van's done?”

“Shouldn't be more than a couple hours,” said Suzuya, not taking his eyes or his hand off Mutsuki. “Nakarai's got his work cut out for him." Nakarai could stand to eat a little later, with Suzuya's snacks holding him over. Funny how things worked out like that. Now Suzuya had a new snack, and Nakarai had a broken down van to fix. Maybe there was some higher judgment out there, after all was said and done, and Suzuya clearly had it on his side.

“A couple of hours?!” Urie exclaimed. “We should have made it to town by _now,_ ” he said through his teeth, as though his composure was waning thin and whoever was responsible for eroding it did not want to test him. Despite that, Suzuya didn't flinch.

“You'll stay for dinner and you'll like it,” he said, calm and unaffected. Urie went quiet, taking a small step back and not so much as looking at Suzuya, after that. “Hanbee can show you guys to the dining room.” He nodded to his tall friend, Hanbee apparently, and Hanbee did just that, ushering them down the hall without any more protestation on their part. “Can you sit up?” he then asked Mutsuki. Mutsuki nodded and slowly pushed himself up to sitting. “Good boy.”

As soon as Mutsuki could stand up and walk without seeing black, Suzuya led him after their friends into the dining room and moved Hanbee a seat over, to sit him down next to him, one chair from the head of the table. Not even Suzuya ever remembered to, but Mutsuki thanked him meekly and spread his napkin over his lap upon sitting. His friends, tentative in every movement of their hands and not taking their eyes off Suzuya and Hanbee, did the same only after seeing Mutsuki do it.

Clouds of smoky vapor crept in through the room's slightly opened glass window, pouring in like something between a thick liquid and a gas until enough of it carpeted the floor to condense into a tall column and slowly take the shape of another black-clad humanoid. Tall but not as tall as Hanbee, with thick black kohl around their eyes and spiked purple hair. “Mikage!” Suzuya chirped as they took an empty seat between Saiko and Urie. “So nice of you to join us!”

“Wouldn't miss it,” said Mikage. “Truth be told, I don't remember the last time we had humans-- er, visitors, here.” Tamaki too came to the table and took a seat, before the analog timer went off in the kitchen, dinner prepared at last. At the ringing of the timer, Suzuya hopped up from the table and all but skipped from the room, returning with a warm-not-hot serving plate of ground meat with red sauce, carving fork and knife stabbed into it and sticking out of the top.

“Meatloaf again?” Tamaki whined as Suzuya set the plate down and started carving thick slices of, upon a closer look, a light-colored meatloaf. Suzuya gave him a look that didn't even come off as angry per se, just zeroed in on him, but it made Tamaki's eyes go wide and he didn't say a word, as long as that look was on him.

“Hush up,” said Suzuya. “Like you even eat it anyway.” He was the cook. He picked the menu. “Tooru.” He picked up the thickest slice with his fork and offered it up to him. “You'll take a nice big piece, won't you? You need your strength.”

“Oh, um,” Mutsuki looked down at his plate. “It's okay. Really, earlier, that just kind of... happens.” Suzuya didn't put the fork down, or offer it to anyone else at the table.

“It's well-done,” was all he said. “I promise.” He just wasn't convinced that someone could faint from the sight of blood. It made sense, given he was so obviously used to walking into a room full of it. At least that was what Mutsuki told himself.

“Um, alright.” Mutsuki thought no more of his insistence and slowly held out his plate. Suzuya served him. “Thank you.” Though, as he learned seconds after, he might have made a mistake, letting Suzuya decide how much went on his plate.

As he served the table, Suzuya piled Mutsuki's dish high, even after what would easily be two plates' worth of meat for Mutsuki, with grits and what looked like collard greens. When dinner was served and Suzuya took his seat at the head of the table, Mutsuki had more food even than Shirazu or Saiko. Those two had the appetites of ravenous monsters and Suzuya gave them as much to eat as they asked for. For a moment, he could only stare at his loaded plate and swear to himself that he was never going to finish it. He hoped Suzuya didn't expect him to.

Suzuya and his friends did not say grace, and none of them but Suzuya put any food on their plate. Even Suzuya only served himself a small end piece of meatloaf, a child's scoop of grits, and a few bites of vegetables at most. As he had with his and Mutsuki's hot cocoa, he went ahead and dug in as soon as he had his plate in front of him, heedless of his guests, tearing into the meat with his fork and knife like he lived to cut things up. Saiko was the first after him to take a bite, Shirazu close behind. Mutsuki started to tentatively eat his greens. Urie didn't touch anything on his plate.

“So,” Shirazu was the first to break the silence between guests and hosts. “What's it like, living in fuckin' Ruggsville?” he asked. “I mean, how can so much creepy shit happen outta one little town? It must be wild!” He took a big bite of his food and proceeded to talk with his mouth full. “You ever see anything weird go down?”

The sudden uproar of laughter that followed made Mutsuki jump. All four of their present hosts burst out laughing while bold, brash Shirazu could only force a confused chuckle through his teeth. His awkward, knit half-grin made Mutsuki sick with secondhand embarrassment. That said, Mutsuki couldn't say he didn't too hope that Suzuya would shed some light on any one of the strange happenings he had already made a few half-formed connections to, talking to him and looking at his living room décor.

Unfortunately for them, the second their hosts all stopped laughing, Suzuya started asking them completely unrelated questions until a new conversation started, as if Shirazu never asked. Oddly enough, no one at the table mentioned it or challenged him not to dodge the question. 'Charisma' wasn't the most accurate thing to call it, for everything about Suzuya screamed strange and at times a little off-putting, but he clearly felt comfortable, confident, as the life of the party, never knowing what to say but selling it so well that it didn't matter. Mutsuki found himself unable to stop smiling at him while he talked and told stories to the table.

And, though he felt pure terror upon looking at his plate, each hesitant forkful of his food made him realize more and more how cold and hungry he was. Suzuya's meatloaf tasted different from any meatloaf he had ever tried. He had never eaten rabbit before, but it was soft to bite and it surprised him, how mild and plain a flavor it had. It brought out everything else Suzuya had put in with it.

Strong, garlicky chives. In the back of his mind, Mutsuki wondered why Suzuya didn't just use garlic, but it wasn't poison, so he kept his mouth shut and didn't question the man who saved them from another night of gas station supper. Fresh herbs. He didn't know all the exact ones, but he had cooked for his team enough times to know sage leaves tasted nothing like the powder at the grocery store, mellow and subtle and a tiny bit sweet. And he had seen that Suzuya had thyme, rosemary, and marjoram hanging in bundles, by the table he kept his meat grinder on, and the taste didn't eliminate any of them.

The tomato sauce on top of it had a similar herbal note, but there was something more in there. It reminded Mutsuki a little bit of the barbecue he had grown used to making quick stops for on this particular trip, tart and sweet. Raspberries in tomato sauce? No. It still had the chewy seeds, and he figured it out when he bit down on one. Blackcurrants. In what form, he didn't know, likely dried or canned given where they were, but he hadn't had them since they left Collinsport. He ate the top of his slice first, and almost wanted to scavenge what dregs of deep red sauce were left on the serving plate, only stopped by his self-conscious paralysis at the very thought of drawing that kind of attention to himself.

He had stopped for something quick enough times during their trips to know what collard greens were supposed to take like. Suzuya's came out soft but not mushy, delicately crisp spots towards the edges and small leaves. They must have been thrown in a hot pan and fried. After all, Mutsuki couldn't have been out long enough for Suzuya to get time-consuming sides made. Though his grits weren't at all reminiscent of the quick ones that came with half their pickup meals since crossing the state line, hearty, cheddary, and full of flavor that he idly wondered whether it was chicken broth or another use of Grim Reaper's evidently excellent rabbit.

Suzuya finished eating early on, unabashed as he even squeegeed his plate with his first finger and licked it clean. Once his plate was empty, he devoted all his attention to chatting with the guests. He could somehow make out the horribly faded graphic on Shirazu's shirt. Black Sabbath. Same as one of the many pins on his leather jacket.

“How about that?” he said with a smile, when he asked and Shirazu confirmed that he was indeed a fan. “I love 'Sabbath!' Why do you think I grew my hair so damn long?” It almost touched his shoulders, his bangs falling into his eyes wherever they escaped their pins. “We've gotta play some records! Have us a sing-along while we wait for the storm to clear up! What should we play first?” His grin went a little wild, teeth definitely sharper than Mutsuki's or even Shirazu's. “Their first record's my favorite,” he said when he cooled down. “All doomy, and gloomy.”

“Heh-heh...” Mutsuki had never seen Shirazu with no idea what to say. Shirazu scratched the back of his head, giving Suzuya the same look he gave the team when he admitted to losing their spare tire. “Uh, I'm not the biggest 'doom and gloom' guy. I think I know the words to 'Paranoid' but that's about it, you see?” He endlessly shouted off-key to their songs on the radio while Urie drove and demanded he shut his mouth. Even though he clearly didn't want to tell Suzuya that, there were worse ways to pass time than listening to a little music. Not that Mutsuki was much of a headbanger, himself. But if anything, the rain outside sounded even nastier than before, and he was more scared to drive in it than he was to accept Suzuya's hospitality, and with it anything Suzuya wanted to do.

“Oh, I know the words to all their songs!” Suzuya chirped. “You learn lots when the records are your only company.” So he was no stranger to spending a lot of time alone, even though it wasn't just him in the castle. Mutsuki had a feeling. “We don't get out much.” He said it as casually as any other statement of fact. It took Mutsuki aback for a moment, that he could say something so sad like it was nothing, but perhaps Suzuya had just accepted it. “I dunno if I can teach you, though,” was the point Suzuya ultimately decided to make. “How about 'Iron Claw?'” Shirazu said nothing. “Maybe... 'Necromandus?'” Nothing. Suzuya sighed and looked over at Mutsuki. “Tooru? What about you? What kinda records can I play for--”

Before he could finish, a sound of footsteps pricked up his ears. He all but forgot Shirazu and redirected his attention to the dining room entrance. In the doorway stood a lightly grease-smeared Nakarai. “Keijin! Welcome back!” said Suzuya. “Why don't you sit down?” There was an empty seat and placemat, and no food left on the serving dishes. “We saved you some dinner,” Suzuya still told him.

“Van's done,” said Nakarai. He stepped closer and set Urie's car keys on the table. “Don't lose this tire. You won't have Master Suzuya around to save you, next time you screw up.” Nakarai looked straight at Urie with a flat not-quite-glare. Urie stared daggers right back.

“Well, perfect,” he said through his teeth before getting up from his seat. “Ginshi. Tooru. Saiko. Get up. We're leaving.”

“What, why?!” said Shirazu, shooting up from his seat and planting his hands on the table. “You're not seriously thinkin' of drivin' in this shit?! We could barely see the road before it got this bad!” He gestured to the ever-worsening storm out the window. “I'm not gonna let you kill us all just 'cause you'd rather be roadkill than late!”

“Fine, then. Stay here if you like it so much. We'll see you when you hitchhike after us.” He snatched the keys off the table and shoved them into his jacket pocket. “Saiko! Tooru!” he barked as if he was their drill sergeant. “Let's go.”

“...” Mutsuki didn't want to go. It was dark and Shirazu made a good point about them not being able to see out the windshield if they got in the car now. He was afraid to wreck, to die, to suffer agonizing pain due to being thrown out the windshield or something awful that he couldn't stop imagining. But at the same time, he wouldn't put it past Urie to leave without them. He would do anything to look good in front of Dr. Sasaki and their superiors. True, there was the possibility that Suzuya or Hanbee or somebody would help them, but something about the house seemed eerie. More than the dim lights and little rabbits being raised for slaughter right outside. He didn't know how to explain it. Something was just off. Was it better to take his chances with a hydroplaning van on an invisible road, or with the castle full of strange men with sharp teeth?

Saiko got up and started to follow Urie. Mutsuki just kept looking from Urie to Shirazu until Urie turned to walk away. At that point, he still hadn't decided whether to stay or leave, but the decision was made for him.

“Not so fast.” Suzuya too rose from his seat and, not giving a fuck that he was handling a stranger and guest, put a firm hand on Urie's shoulder. He turned Urie right around and looked up at him with unamused, narrowed eyes. “Your little friend is right. And besides, we haven't even played any party games, yet!” His new friends, and whatever purple undercut guy was, weren't going to leave him hanging. Visitors were much too few and far between to let that happen.

“Get your hands off me, you sick little mutant,” Urie all but snarled and shrugged off Suzuya's hand. Suzuya didn't flinch. “We're leaving, this instant, and that's final. Tooru. I'm not going to ask again.” Someone sure fancied himself in charge, here. Suzuya had to keep being nice through the burning, deep-seated desire to see even the most petty offender hurt for crossing him.

“Fine,” he said. “Then allow me to show y'all out. This place can be a maze if you're not used to it.” He strode past Urie and the trio of visitors that ultimately decided to leave with him, but not before he walked right into him, almost tripping himself over him and knocking him all the way over before they both regained their footing and he headed the way they came, towards the main hallway. “Whoops.” He didn't stop to see that Urie was okay or even following him. “Anywho, come on this way, if you're really bullheaded enough to insist on going someplace in this weather.”

He led the group back down the hall and showed them the front door, going as far as to hold it open while the four of them filed out. Hanbee and the rest of his colony crept up the join him in the doorway and watch while their guests stepped out into the rain, to their van parked out front, and tried to open the driver's door. And tried again. And again, before hands went into jacket pockets and pulled them inside out to find them empty.

“Looking for these?” Suzuya then taunted, dangling Urie's car keys far enough from his person for the quartet to see them. “Told you you'd stay for games.” But if they really had to go, he could make it just one game. That one game, however, had to be one of his favorites. “This one's easy,” he started to explain. “You get ten seconds to run, and then we get to chase you down!” Hence the game being called 'chase.' “10!” He couldn't help but break into an excited singsong. “Nine! Eight! Seven!”

“You guys, scatter!” Shirazu stepped up and told the group. “I'll find somethin' to break the window and find you when I get the car started! Just run!” Mutsuki, and Saiko did what he said, running off into the woods like scared little rabbits. Urie hesitated, but ultimately did the same while Suzuya kept counting. “Be careful and don't come out for anything if you're not _sure_ it's me!” Then, Shirazu too ran, towards the side of the castle.

“Three!” Suzuya didn't skip numbers or speed up, just finished his countdown, fair and square. “Two! One! Ready or not, here I come!” He cackled in glee before he _almost_ took off running. Almost meaning, he would have if they made a prosthetic leg that could bend like a knee. “Aw fuck, I can't run in this piece of shit,” he said under his breath as the rest of his colony took off after the rest of their hapless playmates.

He could use his wings and thumbs in his more chiropteran form, but where was the fun in that? Where was the chase if he could simply fly up to his prey and so easily get the drop on them? He concentrated hard on his hands until they bent and folded into paws, thick white fur creeping up his wrists and ankles until his arms were covered. His prosthetic leg and liner dropped to the ground as his body proportions moved around and he went down from two legs to three. Hair dyed black turned into black points on his head, ears, back, and fluffy tail. Three legs were easier to run on than one, so as soon as he was all dog save for the teeth that stayed as they were in every solid form his kind had, he took off after the only one of the four to pique his interest.

Mutsuki ran for his life, further and further away from the castle, away from the light. Everything in the woods seemed to move, as it grew darker and darker around him. Shadows all seemed to have arms, legs, and claws. Patches of light were disembodied hands, feet, and faces poorly hidden in the periphery. Wind rustling in the trees, thunder clapping around them, or a creature bounding after him through the leaf litter, he didn’t know what he was hearing and had no interest in staying long enough to find out.

“ _I’m gonna catch you! I’m gonna catch you!”_ echoed in that same menacing singsong, broken up by giggling and an intermittently more aggressive, “ _run, rabbit! Run, rabbit! Run!”_ Then more giggling. Then silence. Sometimes it sounded far away, other times, it sounded right next to him.

When he physically couldn’t make his weak body run anymore, Mutsuki was lost. Surrounded by trees, no sight of the road or of any of his friends in any direction he looked. The woods were eerily silent, not even a rabbit or mouse scampering across the grass and dead leaves under their feet. Everything was either hiding or had been chased away by something. Not wanting to find out, but afraid to get even more lost, Mutsuki crouched down, back against the biggest tree trunk he saw and held absolutely still.

He didn’t want to leave the tree trunk. He really, really didn’t. When he looked in the direction he needed to run, the woods seemed endless, like he would never make it to the road, let alone find Shirazu again, in one piece. Who knew what was lurking in the dark, waiting for him to come out of his hiding place? But then again, who knew what had already found him? What was coming closer and closer as he simply waited for them to pounce?

He had to just do it. Just steel his nerves and give himself a countdown on which to bolt, no room for hesitation. Tears crept up into his throat, thinking about it, starting to count, _one._ He couldn’t. _Two._ He had to. _Three!_

It felt like plunging to his death into a deep, dark abyss, scrambling to his feet and keeping his eyes forward as he ran with everything he had from the tree, every fiber of his being screaming to hide, freeze, play dead. There was no turning back. Anything that might have been there could hear him, see him, chase him. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t hide. All he could do was keep running. If he didn’t run, he wasn’t getting out alive.

But he made it two steps before something fast and heavy slammed into his back and knocked him to the ground. “Caught you!” the same singsong he had been hearing taunted, close enough that Suzuya's chilly breath puffed against his ear. Mutsuki felt small hands press between his shoulders and thighs sit all their weight down in the middle of his back. Suzuya held him down for a moment before turning him over too quickly for Mutsuki to react. “I was juuuust about to scare you outta your rabbithole!” More giggling that escalated to cackling before Suzuya calmed down and merely stared down at him with an awful, bloodthirsty smile.

“Why are you doing this?!” Mutsuki cried, voice breaking and tears in his eyes. “Please, please, just let us go! No one will know about this, I swear!” Suzuya only laughed at him more, even as Mutsuki begged. “Please, don't hurt us...”

“Where do you think you're gonna go so late it's early, in the pouring rain, with no one coming for you?” He crawled his arms forward to where he still straddled Mutsuki's waist, but he lay on him more than he sat on him. Poor thing must have taken a fall or something, running around in the dark without vampiric night vision or even the abled human's depth perception. He had a little scratch on his cheek, same side as his eyepatch.

The sugary scent made Suzuya want to tear into him and bleed him dizzy right there. But he was such a rare kind of sweet. Suzuya found it in him to be patient, satiating himself with a gentle lick, across the still-bleeding scratch. More delectable than he could have ever anticipated. “I won't make us play any more games, okay?” So Urie wouldn't be so pissed off about the games and want to make them leave. And Mutsuki wouldn't be so freaked out, all begging him not to hurt them and shit. “And my friends won't hurt your friends. Not without being invited to, anyway.” He stroked Mutsuki's hair, softly as he stroked his beloved black cats and pushing fingers through hair merely because there was enough hair there to push his fingers through it. “Are you gonna be a good boy and come with me, if I get up?”

Mutsuki only stared at him with wide, trembling eyes. His heart pounded fast in Suzuya's ears, his breath quick and shallow, and his face burning like a white-yellow filament in an incandescent bulb despite his having gotten himself all cold and wet in the rain. After a moment of quiet between them, though, Mutsuki made a soft little squeak and timidly nodded his head.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's no vampire mind control jsyk. i didn't even remember that was a vampire thing until i rewatched a movie where it's relevant. mutsuki is just mutsuki.


	3. Rocky and Janet with Bloodplay

Suzuya guided Mutsuki up a long, winding case of stairs, to what he called his part of the castle. Mutsuki had read all of Dr. Sasaki's books and a pile of others on vampire behavior. Vampires had been colony creatures since they lived in caves on the fringes of ancient human society. Their colonies were once huge. He had read of colonies occupying entire tiny villages they carved into large caves, as well as abandoned buildings. Sanitariums, hotels, and mansions made to house hundreds. 

To this day, some of them remained hundreds strong, though most were no bigger than the Addams Family. Unlike werewolf packs, however, vampire colonies only came together for a handful of reasons. Apart from grooming, defending their home, sharing blood meals in a pinch, and presumably anything humans hit up their family for, a vampire's life was largely solitary. Vampires in a colony staked out their own territory within their shared home and their companions left their space alone unless invited. He was about to see Suzuya's territory; Mutsuki was almost positive.

He had clearly fallen behind on dusting. Mutsuki could guess with certainty when they stepped into his domain by the greyish film over everything from a particular threshold onward. He said nothing, looked at Suzuya only as much as he needed to to follow him and at his hands the entire rest of what felt like a walk to the gallows. Suzuya led him down a dim, lightly neglected hall to a wooden door plastered in hand-drawn 'JUUZOU'S ROOM' and 'KEEP OUT' signs that might have looked out of place in an old-fashioned castle but definitely belonged on the bedroom door of a young headbanger.

“This is my room!” he said with an almost innocent smile, as if on his first playdate with a new best friend. Mutsuki should have felt sick, that he would be so at ease about... whatever he was going to do to them. But there was something about his nonchalance. An obliviousness in how he so bluntly laid out things that would scare anyone but a friend away and made promises to bring such insignificant parts of the terror he put them through to an end, as if it really would solve everything. Was he a cold-blooded sadist for whom inflicting terror on others was no big deal, or did he truly not understand how his 'games' would be called 'restraint,' 'kidnapping,' and 'terrorizing' to the world outside his isolated crypt? “Come on in!” Suzuya opened the door and Mutsuki chose to step inside. He was a hunter, after all. Camera or none, doing so was how he gathered answers on all the places he visited, and despite the knots in his stomach and clamminess in his hands, his questions needed answers.

“Wanna watch the others?” Suzuya asked as he shut his door behind them and crutched right past Mutsuki. “You can see a lot, from my window!” He pulled back the thick, velvety curtains and beckoned Mutsuki to follow him. Mutsuki shook his head. “You sure?” said Suzuya. “It's always fun to watch a game of 'chase!' And you might as well. You're not going anywhere.” Not a threat, Mutsuki would all too soon find out, but a plain statement of fact. “We must've missed whoever took it, but your van is gone.”

“No,” said Mutsuki. At that, he tiptoed closer, still not looking at the window and barely looking at Suzuya. “You're lying!” he willed himself to exclaim. “My friends--! They wouldn't do that! They wouldn't--!” Leave him, or leave however many of them Suzuya was following with his eyes as if watching the television, as they spoke.

“See for yourself,” said Suzuya. He met Mutsuki halfway and guided him to the window. Sure enough, all that was left of the van was a small littering of shattered glass on the ground. No. No, it couldn't be. They were his friends. They wouldn't just leave him. Shirazu wouldn't have lied to save his own skin. Who could have--? “Oh. You're crying.”

Just a little bit, tears welling in the corners of Mutsuki's round, quivering eyes and passively falling down his cheeks, one at a time. As much as Suzuya liked watching him, for he looked so delicate, almost cute, when he cried, it confused him. What was he crying for? “What's the matter?” he asked.

“It's okay,” said Mutsuki, hushed with a break in his voice. Tears came harder and heavier then, a few tiny hiccups shaking his body. “I'm not so sure I would wait for me, either.” He bit his lip and sobbed, almost silently but not quite, deep in his chest. It felt like no time at all, since they initially scattered. Now he knew exactly how long he was worth looking for, if he vanished.

“Hey, hey. Hanbee can take you guys back to Donato's and you can call up whoever you need to call to come get you, in the morning,” said Suzuya. He had no clue why, but he wanted to fix what Mutsuki was crying about. That said, there were limits to what he could do to fix it. There was no other phone for miles and even though the place was technically open all night and Suzuya could hold his own on a nocturnal fried chicken run, he might not be able to save Mutsuki from the wrath of a cranky clown. It defeated the purpose of getting to his destination, if he didn't get there alive. No way were they taking Hanbee's rickety tow truck any further than the gas station, let alone to where Mutsuki had been going before his van broke down, either. There was one thing he could do that night, though. “In the meantime, you should come to bed. Your anemic blood isn't gonna taste itself.” He grinned up at Mutsuki, vibrating with too much unchanneled excitement to blink as he stared into his eyes. “And the night would feel shorter with something to do.”

“I...” Mutsuki said nothing, averted his gaze off to the side and just let his body get warmer, let his blood rush to his head, in silence, frantically wiping the tears from his eyes. “I, uh... Dr. Sasaki says that vampires don't like anemics!” he blurted out and immediately felt like a fool who would easily be the first person to die in one of his friends' terrible monster movies, seeing as that useless nugget of information was what his mind blanked out to when something wanted to eat him. Dr. Sasaki always said it, though, never making it clear whether he was joking or serious, to coax him into a dark hallway or a spooky cave when he just couldn't get his legs to move, save for their shaking.

“Most don't.” Suzuya bounced over to his dark red-covered bed and discarded his crutches as he hopped onto the mattress, resting on his forearms and stomach. “Most don't like people food, either. My friends sure don't. But I have a sweet tooth!” Mutsuki didn't come any closer to him. Suzuya almost deduced that it wasn't going to happen, except for one glaring thing. This entire time, an unlocked door right behind him and nothing in his way, he hadn't run, nor had he held out and waited for his friends before coming into the house, alone with Suzuya. Even when he protested, he didn't cry for help or call Suzuya a monster. All he said about his situation was that he thought his friends wouldn't ditch him and Suzuya wouldn't like him. “Don't be scared,” he smiled at Mutsuki and said. He sat up and tapped a hand next to himself, urging him to sit with him. Mutsuki tiptoed over and took a seat. “Wanna tell me what it is you're so afraid of?”

“I... I, uh...” Mutsuki looked only at his hands at the hem of his shirt. “What makes you think I'm afraid?” He sounded more fragile when he tried to force some heroic steel into his voice. It brought out every little waver and tremble, hearing him try to compensate for them.

“Vampire mind powers,” said Suzuya. A hand crept around Mutsuki's farthest shoulder and pulled him in a little as he leaned closer to him, his other hand resting finger by finger on the closest. Mutsuki jumped on contact, but didn't squirm away. “Nah. I'm just playing. But you're shaking like a little bunny rabbit for something, and I _can_ see that you're not cold anymore.” He was feverishly warm, his cheek like a soft, fleshy radiator where Suzuya came close enough almost to touch it to his own.

“Would you not be?” Mutsuki peeped. Suzuya didn't know the answer, but he found something about it awfully sweet. “What is there not to be afraid of? Why am I the only one who's ever afraid, and why does no one mean it when they ask me that?! I... I don't even know where to start!” Poor thing. He didn't understand why Mutsuki was scared any better and it would be an overstatement to say he cared, but Suzuya still wanted to fix that.

It was supposed to be a comforting touch, like the ones Hanbee and before him, Mr. Shinohara gave Suzuya when he was upset, but Suzuya pressed a kiss to the side of Mutsuki's head and Mutsuki made the tiniest, most adorable noise towards the front of his throat. His hair, tousled but newly dry from his journey through the storm, felt soft and warm and nice against his skin. Before Suzuya knew it, his lips migrated to Mutsuki's cheek. He then crawled his lower body around so he faced Mutsuki's front more than his side, straddling his hips and pushing closer. _Warm_ and _soft, more_ and _closer_ played through his head like a dead march echoing through the gallows, moments before an executioner's axe came down.

“Not gonna lie,” he said at the abrupt stop of his inner drum, having ravished Mutsuki's face and neck with jet black lipstick stains and pinned the febrile mess that he was to the mattress. “I was saving room for you. But there's a lotta beds here. You can go sleep somewhere else and I'll fill up on bunnies.” And probably another cup of hot cocoa. “No biggie.”

He considered it, but Suzuya ultimately decided against _making_ Mutsuki submit to his appetite. All that distress made even an anemic as sour as tainted game. What was the point in having such a sweet treat just to ruin it at the last second _and_ never get to have it again? Once that line was crossed, he left himself the choices of killing Mutsuki or letting him go tell others about the monster hiding in the woods. Suzuya had been thrown down that road before. It took generations living and dying before he was forgotten enough to get his utilities turned on. “Or, unless it's too scary, you can stay with me.” He grinned down at Mutsuki. “For dessert.”

Mutsuki's stomach sank and nausea bubbled up in his throat as he stared into Suzuya's fanged grin and reluctantly accepted what he meant. Dessert was him. He had put his head in fire after fire in hopes of seeing hell, and sure enough he had finally gotten what he wished for. Though Suzuya was his first encounter that turned out to be a real vampire, he had familiarized himself enough with Dr. Sasaki's research to know exactly what Suzuya was asking of him.

Despite his big personality, Suzuya was a tiny creature, shorter even than Mutsuki and likely turned when he was very young, or in a time period where interventions to retain a boy's youth were still practiced on people. Vampires needed a lot each night and couldn't go long without feeding, but one as small as Suzuya couldn't need to drain anything bigger than a rabbit. If he was truly ravenous, he could play with Mutsuki's life and cut it very close, but Mutsuki didn't fear dying by his hand. However, that didn't mean he had nothing to be afraid of.

Vampires lapped up blood just like their namesake bats. As much as their victims would have liked for them to have incisor fangs, a la Nosferatu, the pain inflicted by their more Dracula-like teeth evidently didn't make it impossible to feed, for those were the teeth they had. That said, with fangs hiding where canines would be, they had to bite, and to introduce their blood-thinning saliva into the wound, they had to chew. It was going to hurt. More than any physical pain in Mutsuki's memory, it was going to hurt.

“Yes, please,” he murmured. Suzuya didn't hesitate to sit up off him and peel off his jacket. “Wait! What are you--?!”

“What?” said Suzuya. “These are prized possessions!” Not to mention a little restrictive. “And I'm not about to wear my butchers' clothes, even for you,” he said. How could he relish his treat in a cap, gloves, and apron that got as humid as a summer's day?

“No, no,” said Mutsuki. “It's okay. I, um...” His face was so warm. “You should be comfortable, too.” The cutest, tiniest smile. Suzuya smiled back for a second before unfastening his strappy leather cummerbund and tossing it in the direction of his jacket, leaving him stripped down to his socks, leggings, and fishnet shirt.

“Much better!” he said with a relieved sigh. “So...” He laid over Mutsuki. “You ever been bit before?” Mutsuki said he was into paranormal stuff. Surely, he could give Suzuya _some_ details.

“Um... no,” said Mutsuki. “I've read a lot of books, but we, uh... mostly deal with photos and recordings. It was actually really neat when we got our hands on a haunted ham radio, though.”

“Okay.” Suzuya kissed Mutsuki's cheek again. Nice and warm, but not a lot to sink his teeth into. His hands crept to Mutsuki's shirt and undid more buttons, planting a trail of cold kisses where he opened each one. “I can deal with squirming.” _Kiss._ “But try not to rip yourself to shreds.” This was a big jump from a ham radio. He didn't have Mama's gibbets, racks, and iron chains, but he might nick a major artery if Mutsuki took a swing at him while he fed, so once he had Mutsuki's shirt open, he kept one hand free to push shirt fabric off to the side and moved the other to pin Mutsuki's wrists over his head. “Last chance to run away.” By no means Mutsuki's last chance to scream.

“You'll stop before I bleed out?” Mutsuki peeped. “I... I don't... I don't want to die.” Suzuya would never. True, Donato and his minions could deep-fry any mishap beyond ever being found, but a human with three friends and a destination he was expected at would eventually be missed. Inexplicable sense of attachment to him aside, killing Mutsuki was a recipe for another angry mob. He would just have to be careful. He could do careful.

“Promise.” Suzuya grinned down at Mutsuki and kissed his cheek. His free hand rested, not grabbing or pinning but ready for either, on Mutsuki's waist. He crept down from Mutsuki's face towards his neck, ghosting his mouth and nose over Mutsuki's flushed bare skin as he went. One last marking kiss, then he bared his teeth and sank them into flesh.

Mutsuki went tense against Suzuya's hold and a deep, sobbing cry echoed through the room. Suzuya felt Mutsuki shake with tears and heard him sob as he bit down deeper and started to chew, more hungry drool trickling from his mouth with every agonizing movement of teeth in the wound until blood poured in a thin stream to the duvet beneath them. “Good job,” Suzuya unlatched himself from Mutsuki's neck and breathed then, staring with blown pupils at the glistening pool of red forming as bite marks bled into each other. Something about Mutsuki making it through the hardest part had been on the tip of his tongue, but he could all but see the air around them grow thick with the decadent effluvia of newly spilled blood and all his tongue wanted to do was feed. He gave up on remembering words and plunged unceremoniously back into the crook of Mutsuki's neck with a slurpy, salvaging lick over the entire bite.

He wondered if this was what 'blood drunk' felt like, Mutsuki's heart pounding in his head, making the most face-melting music out of his tearful mewls and strained deep breathing. His vision swam with dark red even when his face was too hidden behind Mutsuki to let the dim light of the room in. Though it started at his mouth and spread across his face as it too was coated in blood, a heavy feeling of viscous, velvety warmth blanketed him all over within a minute of lapping at his victim's dripping neck.

A little scratch didn't do Mutsuki justice. By the mouthful, his blood went down like a syrupy liqueur, rich and spreading a fuzzy kind of heat from Suzuya's throat all through his chest as he drank. Deep down, he knew all blood felt like that when it was still warm, but it came so much easier to savor this way. Large prey animals were safer to cut in their sleep than to chase down and bite, but the constant caution against being gored also took a little bit of the pleasure out of live feeding. And Mutsuki was closer to a dessert than to any antelope or javelina Suzuya ever had. He tasted of molasses with a hint of metal and meat, a little bit like that sticky-sweet barbecue Donato invited him over for after some boys from town tried to rob the gas station, but so much better.

Suzuya fed until Mutsuki's heartbeat had crept up fast enough that he could hear a difference and Mutsuki's deliberately slow 'stay calm' breath too came quicker and more shallow, just like they did in big game, signs that Suzuya needed to stop if he hoped to spare his prey without hooking them up to an I.V. He reluctantly picked his head up, blood all over his mouth and dripping down his chin.

Mutsuki looked a mess, underneath him, a tired ragdoll in his hands compared to the instinctively squirming and struggling thing Suzuya bit. Suzuya released him from his grasp and crawled off him to hop up next to him on the mattress. He licked all around his own mouth and wiped what he couldn't reach with his sleeve, then dragged Mutsuki up to sitting.

Mutsuki groaned something softly in protest, but rested where Suzuya put him against the headboard, keeping his bite above his heart while Suzuya made all his scattered pillows and stuffed animals into the tallest pile he could. He then laid Mutsuki down against the pile, himself taking what room was left on it so he could loom by Mutsuki and watch him, a stray hand wrapping around Mutsuki's waist to hold him close.

“Um, Juuzou?” Mutsuki peeped after a few minutes of lying with him, his voice quiet and slightly slurred. He sat up a little taller on his own and put a clammy hand on Suzuya's, leaning his weight on it like a humanoid cane. “I'm sorry to be a bother, but do you think you can show me where to get some water, please? It might make my head feel better.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Suzuya, a small smile on his face. “You just stay here. I'll go and come back.” With some water. Maybe some snacks, to help him recover. Mutsuki hadn't lost enough blood that he would go into shock or anything else demanding the immediate response of someone watching over him, as much as Suzuya didn't want to leave.

“No, no,” Mutsuki still said. He withdrew his hand and scrambled ahead of Suzuya just as Suzuya began to move off the bed. “It's fine.” He pushed himself off the edge of the bed to standing. “I don't want to...” He lurched forward upon standing, leaning against Suzuya's nightstand to avoid faceplanting. “Be any...” He tried to stand straight and pick a foot up towards the door. _“Trou-ou-ble!”_

He started to fall. Suzuya clambered to the edge of the bed and caught him by his clothes. Not the most chivalrous, two-legged way to stop him from eating floorboards, but it got him falling towards him so that Suzuya could catch him and help him back into bed.

“Told you,” he said. “I'll be right back, okay?” He smiled down at Mutsuki, once again safely curled up against the pillow tower. His skin felt cool and sweaty against his lips, but Suzuya kissed him again, long and savoring on his mouth, before hopping up to his crutches. “Don't go anywhere!” he singsonged. Not that Mutsuki could if he wanted to. Poor thing. Suzuya might not have fed enough to kill him, but he was going to be helpless at least for the rest of the night, perhaps even the next day. Maybe, careful as he had tried to be, Suzuya had gone too far. With a sweet, adorable, warm body in his bed and a stomach full of anemic human blood, though, he had a hard time caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl even though i ended up concluding this story somewhere other than i originally planned, the whole reason i gave haise a phd was so when urie lets it slip where he (yes it was him who abandoned everyone else and again, ended the story before getting to that so i'll just tell u) left his teammates and haise bursts in i could write a "mucchan!" "dr. sasaki!" "mucchan!" "dr. sasaki!" bit bc i loves me some rocky horror.
> 
> one thing i had intended from the start tho is to leave it ambiguous what happened to saiko and shirazu, so it's up to u whose clutches who ended up in, if anyone's. 
> 
> maaaybe i'll make more stories of this au bc i love vampire stuff and it's so delightfully nostalgic to combine vampires and suzumutsu, but i kinda like this one more open-ended than i planned. also this chapter would be so so long if i put in everything i had in mind when i came up w this.


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